~ Reclaim the streets for people who cycle and walk

Will much needed housing replace car storage in London?

Two major challenges for London are housing and transport

6.8 million car parking spaces in London take up at least 78.5 km sq, based on the minimum parking space. When land for housing is in short supply and cars are greedily sucking up space, we have an escalating crisis.

So it is encouraging to see the Mayor of London’s draft London plan set the ambition to reduce car dependency and use space more efficiently. This is what the Mayor calls ‘Good growth’.

“If you buy or rent a home in London and make regular journeys to the work or shops, I want to see safe and secure cycle parking available for every journey, across all parts of the city. For too long our housing and infrastructure has been built solely around the car”, the Mayor explained. Car parking spaces for disabled people are to be be prioritised and cycle parking will be increased.

This is exactly what we need.

The real story is hidden in the detail

Policy T5 Cycling is not as ambitious as we were lead to believe. This table, kindly supplied by Ecocycles, compares the current London Plan with the new draft plan for Cycle Parking Standards for Office Buildings. In this context the numbers seem stagnant or lacking in ambition.

Ambient cycle parking is not mentioned in the draft London Plan. Stop Killing Cyclists have estimated that we need 60,000 across Greater London.

The London plan states that ‘Development should facilitate and encourage cycling, and reduce car dependency and the health problems it creates’. These cycle parking standards must be redrawn to reflect that admirable vision.

This table in the draft London Plan sets out maximum parking provision for residential units. Whilst CAZ is car-free, parts of inner London and Outer London have maximum car parking of between 0.25-1.5 per unit. If the Mayor achieves the increase from 29,000 homes a year to 66,000 per year, we can anticipate a significant rise in the number of car parking spaces in London. This runs totally counter to the Mayors ambition to reduce car dependency. And how much potential floor space will be lost to more car storage?

CTAL the new tool that could make car-free development possible across all parts of London

The public Transport Access Level (PTAL) is a measure of access to public transport across London. Each area in London is given a PTAL value between 0 and 6, based on the number and frequency of public transport services that can be accessed by a short walk. Areas with higher PTAL values have better access to the
public transport network.

CTALs are based on the current geography of London. They show the current potential for cycling accessibility in an area but this potential might be unrealised without complementary infrastructure. For example, someone may live 15 minutes walk from a London Underground station in an area of low PTAL. But if a cycle route was provided linking them to their nearest London Underground station in less than five minutes on a bike, and additional cycle parking was provided, the CTAL could be realised.

If you can’t ban cars, just take away the parking spaces

Transport in Oslo accounts for 61% of the city’s CO2 emissions – a full 39% of it coming from private cars. This despite Oslo having the world’s highest proportion of electric vehicles. In 2015, Oslo’s politicians decided the only way to meet its carbon targets was to ban cars from its centre.

Car-free development is a vital policy and must cover all areas of London, We cannot cut emissions and achieve the Healthy Streets agenda by perpetuating damaging car culture. Car parking provision must no longer play a part in the London Plan.

Sadly green space, such as back gardens may be lost to new developments as suitable sites dry up. Once cemented over it is hard to reclaim this land. It is lost forever. Green cover is advocated as mitigation but this is not the earth. Does the Mayor really want to erase the earth for more car storage?

I believe we must have year on year targets to reduce parking spaces. Only by shrinking the car(bon) footprint that blights our cities, will we achieve a living environment we can be proud of.

Ground floor of Dalston Square. How many units of housing used for car storage?